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“You’ve found him?” Mrs. Newell exclaimed.

“Yes; but–“

She followed his glance and answered it with a slight shrug. “I can’t take you into my room, because there’s a dress-maker there, and she won’t go because she is waiting to be paid. Schenkelderff,” she exclaimed, “you’re not wanted; please go and look out of the window.”

The Baron rose and, lighting a cigarette, laughingly retired to the embrasure. Mrs. Newell flung herself down and signed to Garnett to take a seat at her side.

“Well–you’ve found him? You’ve talked with him?”

“Yes; I have talked with him–for an hour.”

She made an impatient movement. “That’s too long! Does he refuse?”

“He doesn’t consent.”

“Then you mean–?”

“He wants time to think it over.”

“Time? There is no time–did you tell him so?”

“I told him so; but you must remember that he has plenty. He has taken twenty-four hours.”

Mrs. Newell groaned. “Oh, that’s too much. When he thinks things over he always refuses.”

“Well, he would have refused at once if I had not agreed to the delay.”

She rose nervously from her seat and pressed her hands to her forehead. “It’s too hard, after all I’ve done! The trousseau is ordered–think how disgraceful! You must have managed him badly; I’ll go and see him myself.”

The Baron, at this, turned abruptly from his study of the Place Vendome.

“My dear creature, for heaven’s sake don’t spoil everything!” he exclaimed.

Mrs. Newell coloured furiously. “What’s the meaning of that brilliant speech?”

“I was merely putting myself in the place of a man on whom you have ceased to smile.”

He picked up his hat and stick, nodded knowingly to Garnett, and walked toward the door with an air of creaking jauntiness.

But on the threshold Mrs. Newell waylaid him.

“Don’t go–I must speak to you,” she said, following him into the antechamber; and Garnett remembered the dress-maker who was not to be dislodged from her bedroom.

In a moment Mrs. Newell returned, with a small flat packet which she vainly sought to dissemble in an inaccessible pocket.

“He makes everything too odious!” she exclaimed; but whether she referred to her husband or the Baron it was left to Garnett to decide.

She sat silent, nervously twisting her cigarette-case between her fingers, while her visitor rehearsed the details of his conversation with Mr. Newell. He did not indeed tell her the arguments he had used to shake her husband’s resolve, since in his eloquent sketch of Hermione’s situation there had perforce entered hints unflattering to her mother; but he gave the impression that his hearer had in the end been moved, and for that reason had consented to defer his refusal.

“Ah, it’s not that–it’s to prolong our misery!” Mrs. Newell exclaimed; and after a moment she added drearily: “He has been waiting for such an opportunity for years.”

It seemed needless for Garnett to protract his visit, and he took leave with the promise to report at once the result of his final talk with Mr. Newell. But as he was passing through the ante-chamber a side-door opened and Hermione stood before him. Her face was flushed and shaken out of its usual repose of line, and he saw at once that she had been waiting for him.

“Mr. Garnett!” she said in a whisper.

He paused, considering her with surprise: he had never supposed her capable of such emotion as her voice and eyes revealed.

“I want to speak to you; we are quite safe here. Mamma is with the dress-maker,” she explained, closing the door behind her, while Garnett laid aside his hat and stick.

“I am at your service,” he said.

“You have seen my father? Mamma told me that you were to see him to-day,” the girl went on, standing close to him in order that she might not have to raise her voice.

“Yes; I have seen him,” Garnett replied with increasing wonder. Hermione had never before mentioned her father to him, and it was by a slight stretch of veracity that he had included her name in her mother’s plea to Mr. Newell. He had supposed her to be either unconscious of the transaction, or else too much engrossed in her own happiness to give it a thought; and he had forgiven her the last alternative in consideration of the abnormal character of her filial relations. But now he saw that he must readjust his view of her.